Tamara de Lempicka, 1898 - March 18,1980
Born Maria Gorska on May 16, 1898 in Warsaw, Poland, Tamara de Lempicka, was the daughter of a wealthy lawyer and socialite mother. Her parents divorced when she was 16 and Tamara married a Russian lawyer, Tadeusz Lempicki. In 1918 they fled to Paris during the Russian revolution after Tamara had secured her husband's release from arrest by the Bolshevik
...see more »s. This is when she became known as Tamara de Lempicka.
It was in Paris that de Lempicka first received painting lessons at Academie de la Grande Chaumiere under Maurice Denis and Andre Lhote. Her natural talent began with portraits in a distinctive Art Deco or Arts Decoratifs style that led to her first paintings being sold from the Gallerie Collette Weill. She exhibited at the first Art Deco show in Paris in 1925 and a major show in Milan. She was part of the bohemian lifestyle of artistic Paris and knew Picasso, Jean Cocteau and others who were part of the Roaring 20s scene.
After having numerous affairs, she divorced her husband and married one of her long-time patrons, Baron Raoul Kuffner in 1933. She became one of the most fashionable portrait artists of her time, painting dukes and duchesses, entertainers, writers, the wealthy, the famous, the successful and the renowned. She and her husband moved to the United States in 1939 at the threat of war, living in Beverly Hills and then New York City. De Lempicka continued to paint portraits, but started doing still lifes and some abstracts. Some of her friends in New York even asked her to decorate their homes in her unique style.
In 1960, de Lempicka adopted a new painting style using a palette knife instead of a brush; however, this style was not well received. After her husband's death in 1962, she moved to Houston to be near her daughter. She continued to paint although that was not much interest in her work until 1966, the Musee des Arts Decoratifs in Paris held an Art Deco exhibition that revived interest in de Lempicka's work and led to retrospective of her work. She moved to Cuernavaca, Mexico in 1978 and died in her sleep on March 18, 1980. Her art is available in museums and galleries, private collections and retailers around the world.« see less
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